Antichrist

===Pre-Reformation Western Church accusers===
[[File:AntichristSOF.jpg|thumb|[[Woodcut]] showing the Antichrist, 1498]]
[[Arnulf (bishop of Orléans)]] disagreed with the policies and morals of [[Pope John XV]]. He expressed his views while presiding over the [[Council of Reims#Council of Reims, 991|Council of Reims in A.D. 991]]. Arnulf accused John XV of being the Antichrist while also using the [[2 Thessalonians 2|2 Thessalonians passage]] about the "[[Man of Sin|man of lawlessness]]" (or "lawless one"), saying: "Surely, if he is empty of charity and filled with vain knowledge and lifted up, he is Antichrist sitting in God's temple and showing himself as God." This incident is history's earliest record of anyone identifying a pope with the Antichrist (see [[Historicism (Christianity)|Christian Historicism]]).<ref>{{cite book|first=Bernard|last=McGinn|title=Anti-Christ: Two Thousand Years of the Human Fascination With Evil|publisher=[[Columbia University Press]]|location=New York|date=2000|isbn=978-0231119771|page=100}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Schaff|Schaff|1885|p=291}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Russell |first=William R. |date=1994-12-01 |title=Martin Luther's Understanding of the Pope as the Antichrist |url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.14315/arg-1994-jg02/html |journal=Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte |language=de |volume=85 |issue=jg |pages=32–44 |doi=10.14315/arg-1994-jg02 |s2cid=194015213 |issn=2198-0489}}</ref>

[[Pope Gregory VII]] (c. 1015 or 1029–1085), struggled against, in his own words, "a robber of temples, a perjurer against the Holy Roman Church, notorious throughout the whole Roman world for the basest of crimes, namely, [[Antipope Clement III|Wilbert]], plunderer of the holy church of [[Ravenna]], Antichrist, and arch-[[Heresy in Christianity|heretic]]."<ref>{{cite book|title=The Correspondence of Pope Gregory VII|translator-first=Ephraim|translator-last=Emerton|translator-link=Ephraim Emerton|publisher=[[Columbia University Press]]|location=New York |date=1990|isbn=978-0231096270|page=162}}</ref>

Cardinal [[Beno of Santi Martino e Silvestro|Benno]], on the opposite side of the [[Investiture Controversy]], wrote long descriptions of abuses committed by Gregory VII, including [[necromancy]], [[torture]] of a former friend upon a bed of nails, commissioning an attempted assassination, executions without trials, unjust [[excommunication]], doubting the [[real presence of Christ in the Eucharist]], and even burning it.<ref>From long quotations in {{harvnb|Foxe|1583|p=121}}</ref> Benno held that Gregory VII was "either a member of Antichrist, or Antichrist himself."<ref>{{cite journal|first=David M.|last=Whitford|s2cid=162257968|title=The Papal Antichrist: Martin Luther and the Underappreciated Influence of Lorenzo Valla|journal=Renaissance Quarterly|volume=61|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|location=Cambridge, England|issue=61|pages=26–52|date=Spring 2008|doi=10.1353/ren.2008.0027}}</ref>

Eberhard II von Truchsees, [[Archbishopric of Salzburg#Prince-Archbishopric|Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg]] in 1241, denounced [[Pope Gregory IX]] at the Council of [[Regensburg]] as "that man of perdition, whom they call Antichrist, who in his extravagant boasting says, I am God, I cannot err."<ref>{{cite journal|title=Editorial Departments|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YTAuAAAAYAAJ|journal=The Methodist Review|publisher=J. Soule and T. Mason|location=New York City|volume=XLIII|issue=3|page=305|year = 1896}}</ref> He argued that the ten kingdoms that the Antichrist is involved with<ref>{{bibleverse-nb||Daniel|7:23–25|31}}</ref><ref>{{bibleverse-nb||Revelation|13:1–2|31}}</ref><ref>{{bibleverse-nb||Revelation|17:3–18|31}}</ref> were the "Turks, Greeks, Egyptians, Africans, Spaniards, French, English, Germans, Sicilians, and Italians who now occupy the provinces of Rome."<ref name="A Dictionary of the Bible">{{cite encyclopedia|first=John Mee|last=Fuller|title=Antichrist|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zM0UAAAAYAAJ|encyclopedia=A Dictionary of the Bible|publisher=[[John Murray (publishing house)|John Murray]]|location=London, England|date=1893|page=147}}</ref> He held that the papacy was the "little horn" of Daniel 7:8:<ref>{{bibleverse-nb||Daniel|7:8|31}}</ref>
{{blockquote|"A little horn has grown up" with "eyes and mouth speaking great things", which is reducing three of these kingdoms (i.e. Sicily, Italy, and Germany) to subserviency, is persecuting the people of Christ and the saints of God with intolerable opposition, is confounding things human and divine, and is attempting things unutterable, execrable.<ref name="A Dictionary of the Bible" />}}